A Pirate Captain's Prerogative
by hashtagartistlife
Summary: Pirate Captain Lucy Heartfilia finds some interesting cargo in the back waters of Aracitacia Sea. And then her ship catches fire. Go figure. [Nalu]


**I wrote this in response to an artwork of Pirate Captain Lucy and Privateer Natsu by eagerladybug on tumblr. Unfortunately, ffnet seems to have a vendetta against outside links. Just know that it was some good damn art. Also, I do not have any plans on continuing this snippet at the moment. It stands alone as is.**

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 **A Pirate Captain's Prerogative**

by _hashtagartistlife_

It had been 3 years since she last saw a military uniform, but Pirate Captain Lucy Heartfilia was not one for drowning in nostalgia.

"Privateer…. _Dragneel?_ " she asked, drawing out the unfamiliar name in a long, mocking drawl as she gripped his chin and turned his head this way and that. "Well, well, aren't you a long way from home, _Privateer?_ What brings you here to these humble backwaters of Aracitacia Sea?"

She dragged a finger down his cheek slowly and expected him to jerk away from her, to spit at her feet and look at her as if she were scum at the bottom of his shoe, but his gaze remained steady on hers– clear green and not the least bit disgusted. In fact, he looked almost… _curious_. It was a rare enough reaction from _his_ sort that it got her interested, but Lucy didn't let it show. It probably didn't mean anything anyway. She was all too aware of what _they_ were like, the elites and nobles that made up the military of any country. Fiore, Aracitacia, Alvarez - it didn't matter. They were all the same.

She had been _part_ of that farce, after all.

"Tch, what do you think? Are those eyes of yours for decoration? I'm a military privateer, you weirdo. Of _course_ I'm on a nice picnic with my girlfriend and her 32 cats," he answered, and if she had been curious before, Lucy was completely taken aback now. This was not what she had been expecting at all.

"Well, how would lowly pirate scum like me know what the higher-ups do with their time and money? For all I know, you elites _are_ using our taxes to fund cat picnics," she mocked, recovering smoothly and sweeping an insulting bow. The man in front of her– _Natsu_ , she recalled, _Privateer Natsu Dragneel_ – snorted. In spite of everything, she had to give him this – he was fearless. Any lesser man would have shown just a bit of fear by now, bound, unarmed and helpless as he was, at the mercies of a Pirate Captain.

Not him.

" _Our_ taxes. Never thought I'd hear a pirate worrying about where their taxes go. Seeing as how they _don't pay them_."

Lucy clapped a hand to her chest. "You _wound_ me, you do, Privateer! Why, I wasn't _born_ a Pirate Captain with a crew at her feet. No, before my ascension as Pirate Captain Lucy, I'll have you know I was an extremely upstanding citizen of Fiore who always paid her taxes. As such, it's still my prerogative to wonder about what you do with _my_ money. So there."

Another snort, this time accompanied by an eye roll. "Suuuure, princess. Whatever helps you sleep at night."

"Were you volunteering?" was Lucy's saucy reply, and for the first time since their encounter she was rewarded with the sight of the apparently unflappable Privateer losing his composure just a little. His skin flushed with colour and those intractable eyes darted away from hers, looking anywhere but her.

"I – as if – of all the–"

"Relax, Privateer, it was a _joke_ ," she drawled, privately very amused that the irreverent soldier could be undone by such a simple innuendo. Not that she thought his reaction was cute or anything. Nope. Not at all. "What _would_ help, though, is if you would let me know the _real_ reason you were out in the middle of nowhere on such a tiny boat. We're three day's sailing away from the nearest port, and there's no way in hell you were out here on military duty on what can barely qualify as a rowboat without any of your subordinates accompanying you. And last I checked, I didn't see any girlfriends or cats on board with you either."

All of a sudden, the Privateer's miffed expression hardened, and he clamped his mouth shut. He shook his head resolutely, and Lucy sighed. Ah. So that was how he was going to play it. It was almost a shame, really, she had started to take a liking to him. So much so that she probably would've dropped him off on the nearest uninhabited island with _five_ day's worth of sustenance, instead of the customary three days. Maybe even a whole _week_.

Well, no more of that now. To business it was.

"That's hardly an answer," she chided, and placed her hand on the hilt of the sword when–

something exploded at the stern of the ship, and Lucy whipped around to see a plume of smoke going up from her beloved sails.

"Captain! We're under attack!" her first mate screeched, and in the distant horizon, Lucy saw the silhouette of ships drawing closer. But– but that was impossible. Surely they were too far away for any kind of attack – cannons that could shoot this far _did not exist –_ and surely those ships were moving across the water much faster than any ship in this world ought to be capable of–

"Mother _fucker_ ," the Privateer swore softly under his breath, and Lucy rounded on him immediately.

"This is _your_ doing!" she snarled, drawing her sword to place it against his jugular, right where a silvery scar marked a previous attempt on his life. There were more explosions from behind her, and every _boom-crash_ was like a knife through Lucy's own body. "I swear, if anything happens to any of my crew, I will personally rip open that scar of yours and this time I will make sure it _completes the job!_ "

"This isn't me!" the Privateer snapped back, his eyes wild, all of a sudden struggling against his bonds. "You've got to loose me, quick, if you don't want to die–"

"– like hell I'd believe you," Lucy growled, ignoring his desperate attempts to pull free. Her ship was on fire, her crew in disarray. If they were going down, this bastard was going down with them if it was the last thing she did.

"Fuck, captain, I swear on my _life_ , this isn't me. Look at the insignia on those boats! I'm an Alvarez soldier. Those boats are _Aracitacia_ boats!"

He was right. Lucy swore– while she was arguing with him, they had drawn close enough for her to distinguish the mark on their sails. They were still firing – her crew still doing their best to fire back – but there was something unnatural about them, the way they sliced through the water with no resistance, the way her crew's return fire did not seem to affect them as much as it should. Her own ship was now a scene straight out of Dante's _Inferno_ , smoke and flames and screams of agony everywhere. How had it gotten so bad so quickly?

"I can stop this," Natsu said quietly, no longer struggling, surveying the destruction around them. "Please, Lucy, you have to trust me, I won't hurt any of you, _I can stop this_."

It was the sight of her first mate, hoisting a rifle onto her bleeding shoulder and shouting at Lucy to ' _Please Captain, get away from here!'_ that made her mind up.

" _You better,_ " she seethed, before slicing through his bonds in one quick, decisive swing of her sword.


End file.
